Chris Tollefson, lawyer for the non-profit conservation group, questioned a panel of company experts Monday — the opening day of the hearings in Prince Rupert, B.C. — about the company's assessment of the project's impacts on marine birds.

Tollefson said the area that would be traversed by 220 oil tankers annually is home to hundreds of at-risk species, including the endangered marbled murrelet, great blue heron, horned grebe and black-footed albatross.

"The literature says that the cumulative effects of chronic oiling on marine birds is greater than the impact of catastrophic oil spills. Would you agree that that's what the literature says," Tollefson asked Jeff Green, who was responsible for the project's environmental assessment for Calgary-based Enbridge.

Such chronic, or "mystery" spills, can be as large as tanker spills, Green agreed, but they occur in different regions and in smaller volumes, and therefore behave differently.

The growing awareness of the problem has resulted in a call for increased surveillance and increased enforcement of laws that prevent ship-source discharges, he said.

"So, yes, it is a problem. There's absolutely no question it's a problem: oil and birds are not a good combination," Green said.

But recreational boats, fishing vessels, urban runoff and sewage are sources of mystery oil, Green said, as well as natural seepage from offshore oil deposits in the Pacific.

Authorized discharges are legally limited to an amount that does not have a significant impact on wildlife. Discharges above that amount are illegal under the Canada Shipping Act, he said.

"The project is going to fully comply with all regulation and laws. That is our firm expectation," said John Carruthers, president of Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines, one of nearly two dozen experts who will testify under oath at the hearings.

But Tollefson pointed out that Enbridge has not disclosed all partners in the Northern Gateway project, and questioned whether the company can make that guarantee.

"Is the difficulty that we don't know who the shippers will be and we don't know whether they will follow the laws of Canada?" Tollefson said.

"No. They're required to follow the laws of Canada, whether it's oil tankers or any ships of any (kind)," Carruthers said.

Green pointed out that the 220 ships expected to transport oil from Kitimat would represent just three per cent of the ship traffic in the region.

Nature Canada is concerned that vessel strikes, oil spills, and habitat and prey disturbance could have catastrophic effects on marine birds along the tanker route and near the tanker port.

BC Parks lists more than 60 marine protected areas in the region, including the North Coast Fjords, Queen Charlotte Sound, Hecate Strait and Dixon Entrance.

Green said an assessment found there would not be significant effects on marine birds from routine operations. The effects of oil spills will be dealt with later in the hearings.

About three dozen protesters gathered in a cold rain outside the hearing centre.

Jennifer Rice, a Prince Rupert city councillor and a campaigner for the T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation, presented Carruthers with a 40,000-signature petition. The city council has voted to oppose the pipeline proposal.

"This is the central area of our commercial fishing fleet," Rice said. "They fish in Douglas Channel. They fish all up and down the coast, so the threats to our commercial fishing fleet are huge. We're a fishing town."

Janet Holder, vice-president of western access for Enbridge Northern Gateway, said the plans could change for the project as they get more input from stakeholder groups during the hearings.

"As we have those discussions, we have been continually evolving and I think you will see some evolvement before we ever get to a decision on this," Holder said.

The panel will sit for a week, and will come back to Prince Rupert for another 10 weeks of hearings in the new year.

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10 Facts About Canada's Oil Industry

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The oil and gas industries accounted for around $65 billion of economic activity in Canada annually in recent years, or slightly less than 5 per cent of GDP. Source: Canada Energy Research Institute

Canada exported some 12,000 cubic metres of oil per day in 1980. By 2010, that number had grown to 112,000 cubic metres daily. Source: Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers

Canada refined 300,000 cubic metres daily in 1980; in 2010, that number was slightly down, to 291,000, even though exports of oil had grown tenfold in that time. Source: Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers

Despite talk by the federal government that it wants to open Asian markets to Canadian oil, the vast majority of exports still go to the United States -- 97 per cent as of 2009. Source: Natural Resources Canada

Canada's proven reserves of 175 billion barrels of oil -- the vast majority of it trapped in the oil sands -- is the second-largest oil stash in the world, after Saudi Arabia's 267 billion. Source: Oil & Gas Journal

One-third of Canada's oil sands bitumen stays in the country, and is refined into gasoline, heating oil and diesel. Source: Natural Resources Canada

Despite its reputation as the undisputed centre of Canada's oil industry, Alberta accounts for only two-thirds of energy production. British Columbia and Saskatchewan are the second and third-largest producers. Source: Natural Resources Canada

Alberta' government will reap $1.2 trillion in royalties from the oil sands over the next 35 years, according to the Canadian Energy Research Institute.

Thanks to improvements in energy efficiency, and a weakening of the country's manufacturing base, oil consumption in Canada has had virtually no net change in 30 years. Consumption went from 287,000 cubic metres daily in 1980 to 260,000 cubic metres daily in 2010. Source: Source: Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers

The National Energy Board says oil and gas employs 257,000 people in Canada, not including gas station employees. And the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers says the oil sands alone will grow from 75,000 jobs to 905,000 jobs by 2035 -- assuming, of course, the price of oil holds up.